Once again I find myself at the end of a school year and find that I was too busy doing to blog about it. That's a good thing I suppose. :)

Still, I DO have some pictures I want to share from out 2014-2015 school year. We actually have one more week before we are done. We got a little behind with tons of doctor/medical things last fall and this winter, but here we are at the finish line. Butterfly and Cricket have 5 more days of Creation to Greeks (My Father's World). Butterfly is done with math and has one more English lesson and 2 more lessons in All About Spelling level 3 to get her where I want to be. Cricket is done with English and has 2.5 lessons level in All About Spelling level 2. Math for him, we're just going to call it done although he didn't get through all of his 3rd grade math. Math is a real struggle for him. He started the year actually going backward and regressed to below a first grade level. After talking with some experienced homeschoolars, I just stopped all math with him for a semester. We started back up in January and were able to make major progress. We moved through 1st and 2nd grade math and into 3rd grade level work. I estimate he is only about half a grade level behind now. Confidence is still a struggle, but math (usually) doesn't equal tears and complete shut down anymore.

Things that worked this year: well, actually most things worked. We continue to love My Father's World for our core. I actually enjoyed CtG more then ECC from last year. For one thing, the science was better and I like the anchor the history cycle provides. We will continue with MFW next year, but I may switch art around as I'm not too impressed with the art that is part of the program. Language arts I am happy with what we are using. I am VERY, VERY happy with our switch in spelling programs. We went from Spelling Power which was ok for Butterfly and HORRIBLE for Cricket to All About Spelling. I can NOT say enough about how wonderful AAS is. Total. Life. Saver! *I* have learned so much from it. Had I had this program when I was a child, I think I would be a much better speller even with my dyslexia. The phonics that is part of it is so helpful too. We also had a lot of success with IEW writing program in our homeschool co-op this year. So much so that I plan to add it in next year for our writing program for Butterfly and Cricket. We used CTC math program this year and it was a good fit for the year. It is really good at identifying and filling in gaps which we needed. It also is helpful in catching students up. Although it was a good fit this year, I don't think it will be good in the long run. I don't feel that the lessons are complete enough or that there is enough practice for each topic to make it a complete math program. Sure I could add that practice in myself, but really, I don't have the time to mess with that. I want a program that already has that. So planning to switch to Teaching Textbooks next year.

So here are some pictures from the second half of our year...

Here is our schoolroom/area all set up.

Learning about the 10 plagues. Kids reenact the boils plague.

Butterfly works on IEW.

Cricket works on learning cursive. Isn't his handwriting AMAZING??

We learned about the tabernacle and created mini replica of it.

Ladybug working on her Bible notebook.

In science we studied the solar system. Here we are comparing distance between the plants using a roll of TP.

I remember at some point wondering if Lil'Bug would be able to shoot a bow and arrow as I watched the big kids run around playing with theirs. I really shouldn't have thought about it. He picked up Ladybug's bow and figured out a way to do it. He's actually a better shoot then she is!